The office was massive, easily large enough for a hundred men. But he was alone. He knew, all too well, that his position had been badly weakened. No one gave a damn what the ordinary citizen thought — and the average citizen of Germany East was solidly behind the Waffen-SS — but his military and political subordinates posed a very different problem. Karl had declared himself the Führer, the first true warlord since Adolf Hitler himself; as long as he succeeded, as long as he met no significant setbacks, his position was completely unchallengeable. No one would dare to question him…
But now he had suffered a massive setback.
He was honest enough to admit it, at least to himself. The planned reconquest of Berlin had failed, miserably. There was no way, now, to destroy the rebel government. And of thousands of stormtroopers had been killed in the fighting. It was enough to weaken the resolve of a lesser man. Karl knew, all too well, that quite a few of his subordinates were lesser men. They’d sell out to the rebels in a heartbeat if they thought they could maintain their power and position. But he could do nothing. Purging every senior officer who might pose a threat would not only weaken his command structure, it would almost certainly prompt a coup. There were too many officers, even among the loyalists, who would assume that they too were going to be purged.
His hands touched a thin folder on his desk. Karl picked it up and opened it, reading — again — the nuclear codes for his stockpile of tactical nuclear warheads. His engineers hadn’t managed to unlock the launch codes for the missile fields in Siberia, something that bothered him more than he cared to admit, but he had some nuclear warheads. And yet, using them might also prompt a coup.
He shook his head in frustration. It had been a mistake, he acknowledged now, to allow the stormtroopers so much freedom during the march to Berlin. No one gave a damn about how Untermenschen were treated, but the citizens of Germany Prime were Germans. The censors had slapped down hard on any whispers of atrocities, yet all they’d managed to accomplish was to give the darker rumours credence. A wave of mass slaughter, of rape and looting… there was no way to deny it, no way to convince the population that he hadn’t ordered the SS to punish Germany Prime. Victory would have blown those rumours away. Instead, they’d grown in the telling.
And if you added all the death reports together, he thought sourly, we would have slaughtered the entire population several times over.
His phone rang. “Mein Führer,” Maria said. His ruthlessly efficient secretary was still guarding his door. “The cabinet has arrived. Oberstgruppenführer Alfred Ruengeler is being escorted from the airport and will arrive momentarily.”
“Understood,” Karl said. He forced himself to sit upright, checking his appearance in a small mirror. Hitler had never had to worry about how he presented himself to his subordinates. “Have them escorted in when Ruengeler arrives.”
Making them wait was petty, he acknowledged, but he didn’t dare do anything that suggested he was losing his grip on power. And he wasn’t, he told himself firmly. He still controlled a formidable force, he still ruled Germany East… he still had the nuclear devices. There had been setbacks — there was no disguising the fact that there had been setbacks — but he hadn’t lost.
And I still have my source in the enemy camp, he thought. His private staff had received two more messages from his spy, telling him that the enemy were still trying to consolidate their gains after the Battle of Berlin. We have not lost.
He leaned back in his chair as his cabinet started to file into the giant office, Ruengeler bringing up the rear. The man looked torn between defiance and a grim acceptance that he was probably about to die. Karl didn’t blame him. He needed a scapegoat for the retreat from Berlin and Ruengeler, the man who had been in command of the operation, was the most likely choice.
Pity I can’t put the blame on someone who wasn’t there, Karl thought, darkly. It would be a great excuse to purge some of the unreliable swinehunds.
His gaze swept their ranks as they took up position in front of him. Territories Minister Philipp Kuhnert and Industries Minister Friedrich Leopoldsberger, two men who had served on the Reich Council before the civil war. Both reliable, if only because they knew they wouldn’t survive an enemy victory. Gauleiter Emil Forster, a stanchly conservative official who could be relied upon to do whatever it took to serve the Reich; Gauleiter Hugo Jury, a fanatical loyalist; Gauleiter Staff Innsbruck, a wavering weakling who should never have been promoted above his level of competence. Karl would have liked to dispose of the man — he was simply unreliable — but Innsbruck had too much support from the lower orders. His position would need to be undermined thoroughly before he could be purged.
And he wasn’t in command when we lost the battle, Karl thought, sourly. It was hard to believe that anyone would consider Innsbruck a strong candidate for anything more important than street-sweeper, but Innsbruck hadn’t lost a major battle. A pity he can’t be used as a scapegoat.
“Heil Holliston,” they said, in unison.
Karl allowed himself a flicker of amusement, although it didn’t show on his face. Some of them — Jury in particular — sounded enthusiastic, but others seemed rather more dubious. The Reich hadn’t had a real Führer since Adolf Hitler had died, the Reich Council choosing to establish a figurehead ruler rather than fight over who should take the throne. To them, his claim to supreme authority was a deadly threat. The power Hitler had wielded had been utterly unconstrained. Karl doubted that any of them were foolish enough to believe that he wouldn’t use the power, once he held it. Purging Germany East of those who doubted him would be a good first step.
But it wasn’t important, not now.
“Gentlemen,” he said. There was no more time for brooding. “Let us begin.”
Oberstgruppenführer Alfred Ruengeler held himself ramrod straight, even though he rather suspected that he was about to be arrested and marched straight to his own execution. The Führer needed a scapegoat for the defeat and there was no better candidate, particularly as Alfred had defied the older man’s commands in ordering the retreat from Berlin. There had been no choice — the Waffen-SS had been on the verge of breaking — but he knew Holliston wouldn’t see it that way. The man had been growing increasingly unstable as disaster followed disaster, a tidal wave of chaos breaking over the Reich.